This thesis focus on the presentation of the filmic room the viewer sees in George A. Romero´s three horror classics Night, Dawn and Day of the Dead. The hypothesis goes as follow; fear and element of tension becomes greater if the audience/viewer has a good knowledge about the filmic room in the film, in other words, a good spatial awareness. The conclusion is that it does. The environment is active in its becoming and in its presentation to the viewer. Rooms and places, even objects, is a catalyst and a mean to create emotion. To tackle the problem regards to human emotion, which is highly subjective, ANT (actant-network-theory) is used. This theory is a tool to help decode what it is we find emotionally enticing regards to room and objects in the films.

This paper is a study in press reception with the intent to examine how twelve female actionheroes have been portrayed in Swedish media between 1974 – 2006. The purpose is to discern patterns and differences in how the female movie character is received by their contemporary journalists and to relate their views to social and gender related theories.

The female actionhero is an independent and brutal character, often alone and without a mother or a child. This separates her from typical female roles, which historically been characterized by passivity, fear and dependency on the male characters in the movie.

The female actionhero as a character opens up for complex reception. One perspective in the research identifies the independent woman as a feministic icon. Other researchers and writers relate her masculine attributes, sexual charisma and the movies' financial driving force as a projection of male fantasies.

The summarization of the critique expressed by Swedish press journalists based on 124 movie reviews and other film related articles expose noticeable differences. From a girl who stood in the shadow of male heroes to a coarse woman who surpass them. But there are still areas in which 30 years haven’t changed a thing. Critics still fixate on the female heroe's physical appearance and her achievements are with few exceptions compared to men, and not other women. The critic reception also establishes that journalists since 1974 have become less inclined to apply gender or other social theories to the movies and female heroes. A gender related perspective is despite an independent and strong woman in the background for other perspectives while male critics are in comparison to female critics significantly more inclined to apply feministic theories to movies with female actionheroes.

Looking at the films made by the master of suspense himself, Alfred Hitchcock, and the fundamental elements of editing and Soviet montage theory, this essay investigates how the technical aspect of editing can enhance the sense of suspense in motion pictures. These theories are applied in an analysis of Walter Hill’s neo-noir film The Driver (1978), in order to clarify and further discuss how editing is used to affect the viewer.

The non-linear film - a film telling a story using a reversed or scrambled chronology - has existed since the late 20’s, but just recently gained huge influence and popularity due to films such as Quentin Tarantinos cult-declared Pulp Fiction. In this essay I will analyze this form of narrative, and more specifically; how it’s used in my example film Memento. In my examination, I have seen the original version of the film, and then a re-cut version where the story is “turned over” to form a “normal”, linear narrative. My comparison of the two versions, along with glances towards other films that uses non-linear narrative constitutes the foundation of the analysis, which is also supported by literary resources in the subject. My aim is to formulate some sort of answer to the question; what does the non-linear narrative mean for my understanding of the film? I will in addition, briefly explain my understanding of the difference between linear and non-linear narrative.

The intention with this essay is to investigate how the narration of the South Korean film Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance (Park Chan-wook, 2002) relates to the Hollywood pictures of today. An important change which David Bordwell pays attention to is an intensifying of former stylistic paradigms in what he denominates as intensified continuity. That said, Bordwell and Kristin Thompson are in agreement on that the new films still are predominantly classical. The neoformalistic standpoint which Thompson and Bordwell use appears however to contain some problematic implications. Their way of categorizing films as classical, critics maintain, could only result in empty shells of formal parameters. The essay is built upon investigating three areas: plot, narration and style. The result of this study indicates that Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance remains within the classical characteristics, as well as differentiates on certain matters. However, appropriate conclusion needs taking into account also some of the difficulties and critiques targeting the neoformalistic take on style.

Japanese horror film has since the late 1990: ies been extremely successful. The success could probably, at least partly, be due to the Japanese narrative style (which in my own opinion is quite suitable and effective in horror films). In what way does the Japanese narrative tradition work in matter of expression? My results point towards a narrative discrepancy between J-horror and American horror film, possibly due to the Japanese narrative tradition – a narrative tradition under the influence of various forms of ancient Japanese theatre and general Japanese culture.

This is an analysis of the music in the television-series The Tudors (2007 – 2010). The opening credits and how death is portrayed musically in the last episode are analyzed. My question is what functions the music has. The method used is Michel Chion’s masking-method. You listen to the music, noise and speech and how diegetic and non-diegetic On/Off-screen sound is used. The opening credits of the first season evokes the spirit of the time of King Henry VIII and shows that the series will address topics like religion, power, money, love and war. The melody, the use of modern drums and classical instruments makes the music capturing. Non-diegetic music and speech dominates the soundtrack during the first season. From the second season and on the speech is excluded. The music is important enough in itself. In the episode about death diegetic noise and speech are more important. The non-diegetic music gives feelings of nostalgia, anger and regrets over mistakes in the past. The music evokes a sad feeling because of its slow and somber tempo. I conclude that the functions of the music are to evoke and strengthen feelings of the spectator.

This thesis looks at American remakes based on films from Japan, Sweden and Thailand through an intercultural perspective in order to examine how cultural contexts are translated into the remakes and also if anything gets lost in translation. This has been done by applying Geert Hofstede's theories of Nation Culture Dimensions to be able to point out the differences and similarities between cultures. Upon analyzing the remakes it was discovered that the differences was more connected to cultural context than actual cultural misinterpretations. To overcome intercultural misunderstandings it is essential to have knowledge of other cultures to prevent prejudice and fear towards cultures that differs from one's own.

17. Fernandez Labayen, Miguel

et al.

Sundholm, John

Karlstad University, Faculty of Arts and Education, Department of Culture and Gender studies.

Toy Story(1995) changed the climate of animated films of the late 1990’s and early 2000’s, since it was the first fully computer animated feature film. The purpose of this essay is to explore the styles, forms and themes used in Toy Story,Toy Story 2 (1999) and Toy Story 3 (2010) with the help of Thomas Elsaesser’s and Malte Hagener’s theory of frame and window-narration. The essay also investigates how these elements have changed over the course of the trilogy and in which ways the digital progress in computer animation contributed to these changes. The conclusion of this analysis show that the Toy Story-films share many themes, styles and forms but also that these have varied a lot. Furthermore, the filmmakers have used the digital progress to broaden the narrative scope and scale, which consequently has led to a greater fictitious and realized world.

In the 19th century, photography was often employed in attempts to objectively capture evidence of paranormal phenomena. With the advent of television, this tradition came to be coupled with the apparent mystery of distant communication through electromagnetic waves. The television set has often been depicted as intrinsically occult or even haunted.

It is therefore natural that television has proven to be an ideal medium to present beliefs, tales, and investigations about paranormal phenomena. Most such presentations have been openly ficticious, but in television the distinction between fact and fiction is often blurred, and the emergence of shows where the crew claims to pursue a serious investigation was inevitable. One of the most successful such shows is the British Most Haunted, airing since 2001. In this thesis, the presentation of occult phenomena in three episodes of Most Haunted is analyzed and discussed in light of this framework of traditions.

One main result is that the distinction between fact and fiction is indeed often blurred in Most Haunted. Reconstructions and purported evidence are similar to each other as well as to the historical ghost pictures, and sometimes the crew's reactions or lack of reactions is the only means to tell them apart. Elements aiming at creating a "ghost feeling" are abundant throughout both investigative and other parts of the show, and include monochrome (and sometimes inverted) imagery, blue or green light tones, modified motion speed, and perspectives that let the spectator "be the ghost". Black and white imagery is also a part of the usage of analogue or pseudo-analogue technology to convey connotations of authenticity. Filming the crew's reactions is the most common means of broadcasting a sense of hauntedness, as is often the case in traditional horror motion pictures.

The focus of this essay is the american director Wes Anderson and the use of colour in his films. I also put some focus on colour as a neglected element in film studies, and what has caused this neglect. In my own research, I have analysed three of Anderson's films: Bottle Rocket (1996), The Royal Tenenbaums (2001) and The Darjeeling Limited (2007). To get a broad sense of a films use of colour, I have investigated the colour scheme, the colours of the costumes, as well as colour patterns. I have also interpreted the symbolism related to certain colours and then used the results of the analyses to answer the question; "how does Wes Anderson use colour, and in which film is this most apparent?" A very generalizing answer to this question, is that Anderson use colour as a means of signifying the characters' feelings and ambitions, and also their relations to the themes of the films. He does this by connecting symbolic values to certain colours and makes these colours stand out in certain scenes and in the characters' clothes. The film that best shows this use of colour is The Royal Tenenbaums. In short, this essay will hopefully bring some understanding of how colours are used in the films of Wes Anderson, but also open up the eyes of the readers to the importance of the neglected element itself; colour.

This addresses the problems when a film doesn’t easily fit in to one specific genre. Using No Country for Old Men as an example the study analyses the film from a Western perspective. Is it possible to say that it is a western? To determine that, I compare a number of acknowledged westerns, on the basis to list a number of generic conventions. I then use these conventions in my analysis of the main film. I there discover that the film despite its apparent likeness to the western genre fail to meet one of the fundamental conventions, namely the time aspect. The film doesn’t take place in the 19th century and can therefore be very hard to put under the western category. I however manage to make it so anyway. I expand the genre with a sub genre label. The Contemporary Western is born. The Contemporary Western is a film that meets all the typical conventions of the western except the time setting. This is a film that is a western sett in a modern time.

This paper discusses the concept of uncanny in connection to a renowned French art film Caché (Hidden, Michael Haneke 2005). The aim of the study is to analyse how the film narrates an uncanny feeling of uncertainty about reality. The uncanny sensation in the film 10 emanates from a storyline that tells about an upper-middle-class family living in Paris who receives amateur surveillance footage of their everyday life doings in the mailbox. The experience of being filmed without noticing soon becomes frightening, and the husband in the family starts questioning what is real and not in his own life history. The quest for an answer to whom is filming and why focuses the story on an unresolved childhood trauma. The trauma also forms the basis for a discussion of postcolonial otherness in the midst of the former French colonial power. And it is in the unequal relationships steeped in the colonial/postcolonial history that we will find the key to the characters’ uncanny experiences.

The Swedish censorship is an institution run by the Swedish government since 1911 and has cutting films to protect the citizens from unnecessary violence. Their main purpose doesn't work well with the law of copyright in literary and artistic works, as they break this law while cutting movies. They therefore destroy the authors work by doing this, and in this thesis I will point out how they have destroyed the purpose of two scenes in the film Hellraiser and by that, more or less, altered how the audience may look upon two of the characters in the film. The results points to the unnecessary way of physically cutting films to protect the audience, but also how they choose to work and what preferences they used in their line of work.

The purpose of this essay is to examine the link between the fiction and non-fiction film and try to understand how a documentary is constructed through an analysis of “performance”. I am posing two questions:

When it comes to documentary films, how can the music documentary be considered as an example of “performance”?

What does “performance” mean in relation to the music documentary film?

My theoretical point of departure is Stella Bruzzi’s work. I am analyzing three films which use the term “performance” in different ways; Don’t Look Back (1967) about Bob Dylan, Smith: Dream of Life (2008) about Patti Smith and Joy Division (2007) about the group Joy Division.

The conclusion of my thesis is that every film includes a construction, even a non-fiction film. “Performance” has always been the heart of documentary filmmaking, but the term got even more important during the development of the American direct cinema and the French cinema verité, in 1960s. From there on, the non-fiction film always includes parts of “performance”.

29.

Lindström, Joakim

Karlstad University, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences (starting 2013), Department of Geography, Media and Communication.

This study is about what happens when adapting a video game to film. The material consists of Max Payne,Silent Hill and their respective film adaptations. The method used is that of playing through the games, after which the most interesting aspects from the games are compared to those presented in the adaptions. The thesis is based on film theories by David Bordwell, adaptation theories by Robert Stam and the work of Ulf Wilhelmsson who defines what interactivity is with the help of Mark Johnson and George Lakoff. The result of this study show that the adaptations manages to adapt most aspects of the games and removes or change others, as well as, amplifies some aspects that are better portrayed in the medium of film.

The core question of the essay is how the films by Tim Burton reflect the alienation of his characters. How they are displayed and who portray them, as well as, why certain actors and characters has been chosen. The aim of the essay is to identify patterns of alienation, which is a key characteristic of Burton’s filmmaking. The conclusion of the essay is that the characters in question often are portrayed in a similar way primarily due to Burton’s use of mise-en-scéne.

This article examines the TV series The Fall in terms of the relationship to its location in the city of Belfast. Viewing the process of production and dramatization as intrinsically linked to aspects of the city from a post-conflict perspective, the paper examines how issues of onscreen violence and gender are worked out in this context of economic regeneration in operation since the 1998 Good Friday Agreement. The introduction of a fictional serial killer to the province after decades of violence and a fragile peace process can be seen as an attempt to normalize the region in the popular imagination. The paper firstly examines the various ways that the older geography and spatial markers of the city are incorporated into the series and characters. At times used by the director to add a sense of unresolved social tension and spectral presence of simmering violence, the city and its history provide a repressed background to the foregrounded conflict. This is examined further by framing the series as an example of third-wave Troubles drama where cultural production plays an important role in the stabilizing of this post-conflict society. Within the drama itself images of birth and the tenuous beginnings for future generations are configured around issues of gender, masculinity and unpredictable reactions to the opening up of Northern Irish society to forces of globalization. The paper reflects on how the series effectively intertwines issues of loss, grieving and fragile recovery in a place still not clear on how to deal with its recent history and the anxieties over the return of violence.

This is a study of the 2008 film Hunger made by the British director Steve McQueen, a film that dramatises events in the Maze Prison in the period leading up to the 1981 Irish Republican hunger strike and death of Bobby Sands. It considers the filmic and artistic practice of McQueen in conjunction with certain concepts from the work of Deleuze and Guattari to develop a productive thinking about how the film addresses this traumatic event. Hunger employs a series of aesthetic techniques that push at the limits of the viewer’s senses and suggest new ways of thinking about the subject. McQueen’s concern to go beyond the clichés of the media coverage of the Irish conflict provides a unique insight into the production of a militant subjectivity generated by the opposition to the prison regime of the Maze in Belfast. Ultimately, however, it is argued that McQueen collapses into a form of religious iconicity that reinforces the Irish Republican mythology of suffering and redemption. Hunger, as a work of cinematic creation, offers a powerful sense of how resistance can be made manifest on screen yet, simultaneously, can become captured by the transcendental unity of identity thinking operating through the image of the romanticised face.

The digital evolution in the film industry has opened possibilities that was only to blockbusters before the digital age. I am talking about mass-scenes. Huge scenes with hordes of people often in huge battlefields. This was earlier in film history an extremly costly undertaking for the filmindustry and was a major reason why the large studio systems in Hollywood collapsed in the 60s. Now we can enjoy large scale battles created with CGI without costly extras, costumes and props. It’s all made with the computer and with ’blue screen’ technology. Is it possible to track the mass-scene back to some sort of origin or at least to who that defined the mass-scene ? If we look closer at mass-scenes used in contemporary movies then a clear pattern often emerges. These scenes can often be traced back to especially two propaganda films from the late 30s. Triumph des Willens by Leni Riefenstahl and Alexander Nevsky by Sergei M. Eisenstein. Of course there are others, but these two stands out from the others regarding mass-scenes. My opinion is that these two classic propaganda films have defined the mass-scenes as we have come to see and understand them in many comtemporary films from Star Wars to Lord Of The Rings.

In this thesis I will try to explore the usage of mass-scenes in comtemporary films and hopefully uncover the strong intertextual ties to Triumph des Willens and Alexander Nevsky.

I will also attempt to define the mass-scene and it’s usage in contemporary film.

The paper examines how the slasher genre has developed over the years. The main point of this examination focus on differences in the stylistic appearance of the killer, the development of the “final girl”, the film sole survivor and if there are some narrative changes in the plot structure. The films selected for analysis are scattered over the years, including films like Halloween (Carpenter, 1978), A Nightmare on Elm Street (Craven, 1984) and Scream (Craven, 1996). The main changes that have occurred over the years according to this examination tells us that the stylistic features to hide the killer from the spectators isn’t that important and prominent today as it was in the late 70’s and early 80’s, especially the lightning feature, that characterized Michael Myers in Halloween. Even the characteristic point-of-view shots, who marks the killers presence, is as gone. The biggest development for the final girl is that she doesn’t need to be a virgin anymore in order to defeat the killer, who was the case early on. The narrative structure haven’t changed significantly over the years, but the characteristic opening scene which used to contain a sequence that takes place several years earlier where the killer experiencing a trauma of some kind is gone.

Simple content analysis methods, such as the Bechdel test and measuring percentage of female talk time or characters, have seen a surge of attention from mainstream media and in social media the last couple of years. Underlying assumptions are generally shared with the gender role socialization model and consequently, an importance is stated, due to a high degree to which impressions from media shape in particular young children’s identification processes. For young girls, the Disney Princesses franchise (with Frozen included) stands out as the number one player commercially as well as in customer awareness. The vertical lineup of Disney princesses spans from the passive and domestic working Snow White in 1937 to independent and super-power wielding princess Elsa in 2013, which makes the line of films an optimal test subject in evaluating above-mentioned simple content analysis methods. As a control, a meta-study has been conducted on previous academic studies on the same range of films. The sampled research, within fields spanning from qualitative content analysis and semiotics to coded content analysis, all come to the same conclusions regarding the general changes over time in representations of female characters. The objective of this thesis is to answer whether or not there is a correlation between these changes and those indicated by the simple content analysis methods, i.e. whether or not the simple popular methods are in general coherence with the more intricate academic methods.

This thesis is asking whether the television series Community (2009-) can be defined as a Sitcom, combined with a look at how other genres that generally are considered to be non-comic are incorporated in the series and how those are identifiable as well as whether or not they compromise Community’s possible label as a Sitcom. In seeking to define this show’s place in its own genre I found that whilst Community does not follow the archetypal technical conventions of Sitcom, it still does follow some of its setups, tropes and ideas. It does not suffice as a classical Sitcom, but it does lean on some of the genres conventions and has not yet passed over the line where it would be part of a completely different genre. Instead I state that the series fits the term New Comedy, as devised by Antonio Savorelli, not a genre but a term representing the heightened use of metatextuality on four levels in Comedy. Thus Community suffices as a part of an evolved version of the Sitcom genre.

This article compares the original dialogue, the German dubbing and two different Swedish subtitle versions (TV and DVD) of the American feature film The Nutty Professor. It first discusses the four versions and the quantitative differences between them in terms of the number of words, characters, conversational turns, and subtitles. The focus then shifts to qualitative aspects of the three translations, including content-related changes and clashes with target-language norms. This leads to hypotheses concerning the mode and the medium of a translation and its qualitative profile

Organized and presented at the Avant 2004: Eric M Nilsson and the Experimental Documentary International Conference in Karlstad. The conference had 10 presenters from 5 countries and also included a retrospective of the documentary films of Eric M Nilsson

42.

Sjöberg, Patrik

Karlstad University, Faculty of Arts and Education, Department of Culture and Gender studies.

A Companion to Contemporary Documentary Film presents a collection of original essays that explore major issues surrounding the state of current documentary films and their capacity to inspire and effect change.

Presents a comprehensive collection of essays relating to all aspects of contemporary documentary films

Includes nearly 30 original essays by top documentary film scholars and makers, with each thematic grouping of essays sub-edited by major figures in the field

Explores a variety of themes central to contemporary documentary filmmakers and the study of documentary film – the planet, migration, work, sex, virus, religion, war, torture, and surveillance

Considers a wide diversity of documentary films that fall outside typical canons, including international and avant-garde documentaries presented in a variety of media

47.

Sjöberg, Patrik

Karlstad University, Faculty of Arts and Education, Department of Culture and Gender studies.